US warplanes conducted airstrikes
on an Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) base on the outskirts of
the western Libyan city of Sabratha on February 19. Noureddine
Chouchane, a Tunisian operative linked to two major terrorist attacks
in Tunisia last year, was the target of the strikes. More than
three-dozen people were killed in the operation. Chouchane is believed
to be among the dead.

Such foreign intervention “may unleash
anti-Western sentiments,” said Mezran, a Senior Fellow in the Atlantic
Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

Obama’s Cuba Trip Exposes Cruz, Rubio as ‘Outdated’US President Barack Obama’s decision to make an historic visit
to Cuba in March will have a negligible impact on the presidential
election in the United States; if anything, it has succeeded in exposing
just how out of touch critics of this engagement—particularly
Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, both
Cuban-Americans—are, according to the Atlantic Council’s two top Latin
America analysts.

Saudi-Iran Rivalry Keeps Oil Prices Down The regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran—the two main
producers in a global oil cartel—has become a significant factor behind
the sharp decline in oil prices that has also kept rates at historic
lows.

Iran, Syria, Russia Seen as Top Challenges in the Middle EastIran, Syria, and Russia together pose the biggest challenge in the
Middle East today, and any notion that there can be an alignment of the
interests of Tehran and Washington is unrealistic, three former US
officials said at the Atlantic Council on February 16.

A Mosquito Adds to Brazilian President’s WoesThere is never a good time for an epidemic, but Brazilian President
Dilma Rousseff will agree that the outbreak of mosquito-borne Zika in
her country could not have come at a worse time.Rousseff, who is facing impeachment charges, has been the target of massive rallies in
Brazil at which protesters have demanded her ouster. Brazil is facing
one of its worst recessions ever and Rousseff has been accused of doing
too little too late to address this severe economic downturn.

“Most Colombians have
never seen one single day of peace… They think peace might be bad,”
Santos said in Washington on February 3. He compared this terrified
reaction to that of a prisoner who is to be released after spending
decades behind bars. “We have to teach them that...It is much better to
have peace than it is to have war,” he added.